Given that I like to focus on positive, hopeful, nurturing messages and stories, I never thought I would write a post with the title I have given this one. But the truth is, everything is not always rosy. And not everything turns out the way you wish it would.

Part travelogue, part insider tips on the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, and part confessional, this is a chronicle of my experience trying to get somewhere without success yesterday. Thunderstorms and flooding in the Atlanta area led to over 3,000 flight cancellations that began the day of the storm and rippled into the next several days, impacting flights across the country. I never made it farther than a few hundred yards from my gate and the airplane never traveled faster than I can walk on a slow day, yet luckily there were still some silver linings.

Since I created this piece on Adobe’s Spark platform, which is becoming one of my favorite tools for quickly journaling an idea or telling a story, you have to click one the image above (or HERE) to read the 12 things I learned.

“A letter is a Joy of Earth” — Emily Dickinson

I’ve always loved letters, saving them like rare currency. When the volumes of them in my basement grew too big after decades of stashing them in boxes, I sifted through and parted with some that no longer had meaning, often written by people I could no longer remember. However, I found that even with these letters, I couldn’t simply throw them away. After all, at one point in my life, they felt important enough to keep. So, I made a bonfire and lay them in the flames one by one.

What remained after my de-cluttering was a collection that was still quite large, but now held only letters from close family and friends whose notes to me through the years serve collectively as an ad hoc archive of my life. Perhaps that’s why I love letters so much: they are a private vehicle for exchanging our most precious stories. Read More

The only way I know to become acquainted with a city is to wander its streets by myself. Though I always start out with a destination in mind, I often choose to veer off course, taking detours or following alleyways that seem to beckon. Given my poor sense of direction, I do arrive in some unexpected places on occasion. But I never consider myself lost.

I don’t do as much wandering these days as I did when I was younger. However, a recent trip to Dublin gave me the nudge I needed to change that and I was reminded how priceless it is to explore a new city for the first time.